Israel doubles budget for Indian Jews’ immigration

Some 700 Indian Jews will be able to immigrate to Israel in 2016, a three-fold increase over 2015, after the Israeli government decided to double the budget marked for their immigration to the Jewish state.

India’s Bnei Menashe community in the north-eastern states of Manipur and Mizoram, believed to be descendants of one of the 10 lost tribes of Jews, were allowed aliyah (immigration of Jews to Israel) in 2005 after the chief Sephardi rabbi had accepted them as descendants of Jews.

Speaking in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), immigrant absorption minister Zeev Elkin told the immigration and absorption committee that the number of Jews coming from the Bnei Menashe community will be almost tripled in 2016.

The budget earmarked for the absorption of the Bnei Menashe will be doubled to 2.2 million shekels (about $550,000), Mr Elkin told the committee last week.

There are about 3000 members of the community currently living in Israel, about 600 of whom were born here.

Close to 7,000 in Manipur and Mizoram are said to be waiting to immigrate to the Jewish state.

The community is considered to be one of the 10 lost tribes of Jews with claims of being descendants of the ancient Israelite tribe of Menashe.

However, some 73 per cent of the community’s teenagers are classified as being at risk, a recent report said. “Their employment rate is also low due to their difficulty in speaking Hebrew and only 42 per cent of the community’s children go to school,” the Kiryat Arba local council, had said.